TL;DR: I have a new countertop steam-oven and I made some bread, meat (2x) and eggs (2x) with pictures.
I fantasize about combi-ovens, but they're super expensive so I figured before I buy, I'll try out the
Cuisinart CSO-300 steam/convection oven. It's 125% the size of a toaster oven on the outside, and the cooking cavity is functionally the same as a toaster oven. You could do a small chicken in it; you could do a small loaf of bread, but you'd want to watch the size so it doesn't expand into the heating elements.
We know that ovens are about 1. heating and 2. dehydrating. Steam ovens give you a lot more control over the dehydrating part, and the humidity also transfers heat into food much faster. Awesome things you can do with a steam oven include: proofing bread, baking bread, custards (no water bath), braise-ish meats, steak that mimics near-SV results, steaming veggies and fish, reheating leftovers without drying them out.
Here are the results of my experiments so far. I'd love feedback and constructive suggestions!
Bread
I started with following to the letter a bread recipe that came with the unit, because maybe the recipe had special adjustments. Unsurprisingly, it wasn't a great recipe (but that's okay, it was just a test) and I knew before the first rise that the dough was very dry. First rise all together; then I divided the butterflake-ish dough into 50g dinner rolls. Batch #1 and Batch #2 did their second rise on the countertop; Batch #3 did the second rise in the 100°F (38°C) oven on full humidity - the "proof your dough" setting. No pictures here, but the steam-proofed rolls rose rounder and softer than the counter proofed rolls. Egg wash all round. Surprisingly, but probably due to the small size of the rolls, everyone got the same 2nd-rise time (20m) and cook time (20m).
Exterior
left: convection toaster oven
center: gas oven-range
right: steam-bake option on CSO-300
Interior
left: convection toaster (hairline crust)
center: gas oven-range (less hairline, hard to tell here, a little drier)
right: CSO-300 (hairline crust)
While I wanted the CSO-300 rolls to taste/texture significantly better, I could not find much difference to the interior of the roll. Nonetheless, the browning was much more pleasant - very even, pleasantly dark without drying the roll out any more.
non-brined, dry-rub pork shoulder
Another recipe from the little book that came with the oven: use the "bake-steam" setting on 350°F for 75 minutes, then lower the temperature to 225°F and "bake-steam" for 45 more minutes. I dry-rubbed with salt and generic chili-based rub. It was gorgeous, with a crispy brown crust. I could see fat frying/crisping the crust from outside the unit.
That pink did fade to gray about 60 seconds after pulling the pork apart (no idea why but I'm sure someone knows). Juicy on the inside was nice, but that crust was wonderful.
brined pork shoulder (no rub)
I brined another piece in 4% bring for 24h and didn't bother with salting or dry rub.
Exact same cooking program: 75m 350° bake-steam; 45m 225° bake-steam. The results were very different:
reference pic: pre-cook
no crust, looks bacon-y.
I'm guessing the difference is about two factors: more moisture in the meat means the surface never got to fry, and maybe the rub crusted up or something - although it was only made of ground chiles and spices, nothing that fries up particularly crunchy.
NB: I was cooking up ten pounds of pulled pork in my SV rig, so I pulled these two pieces of pork shoulder for experimentation. The SV pulled pork, which was brined, got a blowtorch treatment after 36 hours at 149°F, which is the MC recommendation. Both the SV and the steam oven pork were delicious, tender, pull-able and sauce-friendly.
custards
eager to rid my life of water baths, I tried a generic sweet custard on steam. Not much to see here, but the results were good enough to improve upon later. For fun, here's a terrible picture of the ramekin's plastic wrap stretching from heat:
MC omelet
finally, I thought maybe I should finally try the fabled omelet from Modernist Cuisine - you know, the striped one. I skipped the stripes because it was my first try.
Smooth, set custard
proved sadly impossible to properly remove from the nonstick pan. Not sure what I did wrong. Maybe too thick. The instructions did not include any nonstick spray.
